


Stay

by antiquitea



Series: Merry Happy [1]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 13:31:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiquitea/pseuds/antiquitea
Summary: One day Jared asks Richard to move in with him.Richard says yes.





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Everything else I'm writing about these two lately feels like an epic - so I just wanted to put out something relatively light and (what passes for) happy. Good things can happen to Richard Hendricks and Jared Dunn, who knew?

Richard has never really lived with anyone before. Which, isn’t entirely true - he’s lived with his family, with Big Head when they shared a dorm room briefly in college, with the guys in the hostel - but this is different. This is _living_ with somebody.

He’s afraid of fucking it all up, as he tends to do with most things. Richard doesn’t feel like he’s capable of having things in his life just go well. The smallest of things don’t go right for him, why should something that bears some manner of actual weight and meaning in his life?

Jared, on the other hand, has the utmost faith in him, because of course he does.

.     .     .

It happens one afternoon, after they’ve spent the majority of the morning in Jared’s bed, drinking coffee, scrolling through Jared’s tablet as they read the news and some blogs together, had a late breakfast in bed. Richard is in the living room, searching for a sock that he knows he was wearing when he arrived the night before, Jared standing in the kitchen, holding a mug of tea and looking uncharacteristically underdressed in a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and that too-bright Pied Piper t-shirt.

“This is dumb. I know I have another sock. I’m wearing one of them,” Richard bemoans, getting onto his hands and knees and looking under Jared’s couch. “Leaving sucks.”

“Then stay,” Jared says a little too quickly, and when Richard looks up at him Jared is wearing the expression of someone who wishes that they could take the last thing they said back.

“Wait. What did you say?” Richard asks, standing up slowly.

“I said … stay,” Jared repeats, closing the space between them with carefully measured steps.

Richard swallows thickly, and tries to ignore the burning that he feels at the tips of his ears. His chest feels tight but warm, and not at all unpleasant. He huffs a quiet, nervous laugh, and can’t quite meet Jared’s eyes. When he does, Jared is gazing at him imploringly, those round, impossibly blue eyes looking so incredibly hopeful.

“Are you, um, are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Yes,” Jared replies, drawing his shoulders up, practically to his ears, as if preparing for Richard to say no.

He couldn’t. Even if he wanted to. It strikes Richard, as it often does when confronted with Jared in situations where he clearly expects to be denied some manner of comfort, some manner of kindness, that he hates whoever hurt Jared so badly before.

“Yes,” Richard says, and Jared nods, clearly not quite understanding, thinking that Richard is simply repeating what he just said. “No, I mean - Jared, yes. I’ll move in with you.”

Jared’s eyes go wide, and he looks so incredibly happy and fond in that moment, beaming wider than Richard has ever seen, that he wouldn’t have been surprised if Jared had told him that it was the happiest day of his life.

Moments later, as they fall into Jared’s - _their_ \- bed amidst a flurry of kisses and gentle, possessive touches, he does.

.     .     .

It’s strange to move out of the hostel, a place that Richard has called “home” far longer than anywhere else, aside from his parents’ when he was growing up. Dinesh and Big Head help him walk things out to Jared’s car, and Gilfoyle supervises while drinking a beer and watching them from the hallway, mostly patronizing the way Dinesh lifts anything.

Richard will miss it in a way, but there’s a nervous excitement bubbling in him about the thought of living with Jared.

There wasn’t much to bring over from the hostel; Richard’s bed can stay there for whoever the next tenant will be, and when packing he realized that he didn’t actually own much of anything. All the same, Jared has spent time clearing out places for him to put his things - some drawers in the dresser, some space in the closet. There’s a second room which Jared uses as an office slash guest room, which he’s already refurnished so that it includes two desks, the bed replaced by a futon.

It doesn’t take Richard long to unpack, for his things to find homes among Jared’s.

.     .     .

There’s a domestic quality about their lives that Richard hadn’t really thought of before. He never fantasized about what their future might be like - not that he didn’t want there to be one, he simply wasn’t the fantasizing type. But he enjoys it so much.

He loves waking up in the morning, and seeing Jared next to him. He loves the little things, like brushing their teeth together in the bathroom before they go to bed, coming home from staying late at the office to find that Jared is waiting for him, quietly sitting together on the couch as they both work on something - whether it be separately or together.

And yet, as much as Richard loves it he worries that he’s going to do something tremendously stupid to ruin it all, to self sabotage his happiness. He’s quite good at that.

.     .     .

They have a housewarming party, even though Jared has lived there for years. Dinesh asks one day when they’ll be having one anyway, and Jared mentions that he’s never had one. Richard moving in seems like a natural catalyst to host a party, and even though Richard loathes parties he begrudgingly agrees.

Really, it’s just Dinesh, Gilfoyle, and Big Head coming over to have a few beers and to watch movies. Monica comes over at one point and sips some wine, crushing herself between Dinesh and Gilfoyle on the couch while they bicker about whether or not Deckard is a replicant as they watch _Blade Runner_.

“This is fun,” Jared says excitedly in the kitchen, as he puts the finishing touches on some guacamole. “I’ve never done a lot of entertaining.”

“I hardly think Gilfoyle and Dinesh count as entertaining,” Richard says, as he dips a tortilla chip into the guacamole. “Monica, maybe.”

Jared shrugs, picking up the serving tray. “All the same, it’s nice to have people over.”

Richard watches Jared from the kitchen for a moment as he makes his way into the living room, setting the tray of food down on the coffee table in front of everyone, blocking their view of the television. Dinesh looks around him in an attempt to get a better glance, just as Monica gets up from the couch and makes her way into the kitchen to join him.

“How are things?” she asks, reaching for the bottle of wine and refilling it. “With you and Jared, I mean.”

“Good. They’re really good,” Richard replies with a nod. He glances into the other room at his boyfriend for moment. “I’m, uh, kind of crazy about him.”

Monica nods, leaning against the counter. She smiles as she sips her wine. “I’m glad." She pauses and fixes her gaze on Richard, looking far more serious than the atmosphere of the gathering should allow. "Richard, please don’t mess this up.”

“I am trying my absolute fucking hardest not to.”

.     .     .

He doesn’t fuck it up. Miraculously. His usual self sabotaging behaviour seems to be kept at bay with Jared in his life this way.

Richard feels like he tries to fuck it up on occasion, but Jared won’t let him. Sometimes Richard locks himself in their office for hours. Sometimes he yells, not at Jared, but just in general. Sometimes he’s cruel - he doesn’t mean to be, he doesn’t want to be, but he knows that he has a habit of not being good.

Okay. He fucks up once, and only once.

They’re arguing. Something about Gavin Belson, who Richard knows Jared feels particularly strongly about. For however much Richard hates him, he knows Jared loathes him more. He can’t remember what he says to Jared to have him look back at him Like That, but Richard would rather death take him when Jared silently walks out of the living room and into their bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. He doesn’t come out, and Richard sleeps on the couch.

Richard is not a good man, but he wants to be the man that Jared thinks that he is so badly.

.     .     .

The bedroom door isn’t locked, why would it be? When Richard opens it very early the next morning, he can tell that Jared is awake, even though his back is turned to him. He’s on Richard’s side of the bed, and is still dressed in his clothes from the day before. Richard feels like a monster for having said something so hurtful.

He carefully crawls onto the bed, as if Jared wasn’t already aware of his existence, and moves behind Jared, pulling him back against his chest. Jared lets him.

“I’m sorry,” Richard murmurs, pressing his face into Jared’s hair, his hand over his heart, feeling the way it hammers in his chest.

“I know,” Jared says softly, his voice sounding rough from a lack of sleep. He places his hand over Richard’s. “I don’t like it when we fight.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t either,” Richard whispers. “I know it can be hard to be around me. I’m not a good man, Jared.”

“Yes. Yes, you are,” Jared says insistently, as he turns in Richard’s arms, facing him. “You are a good man, Richard Hendricks. The best that I know. There’s so much good in you. I know that there is.”

“I don’t feel like it when I say things like that to you,” he says, brushing Jared’s slightly disheveled hair back into place. “I feel like there’s this _thing_ inside of me, that just can’t let me be happy. But I want to be. _I am._ Whenever I’m with you.”

“Oh. Richard.”

Richard sighs, and presses his forehead against Jared’s. “Are we - are we okay?”

“Of course,” Jared replies, placing a hand on Richard’s hip. “But next time, if there is a next time, please don’t sleep on the couch. Come to bed. Come to me. I thought that you were so cross with me.”

“Cross with you?” Richard repeats, incredulously. “Why on earth would I be mad at you? I’m the one who was being an asshole.”

Jared shrugs lamely, and Richard kisses his forehead, again hating whoever hurt Jared so badly before.

.     .     .

Richard finds that he takes more time for himself, more time for himself and Jared ever since they moved in together. Though Jared had always been pushing manners of self care before, Richard found it difficult to follow through. But Jared there to basically insist that he do, it becomes easier. As hard and as much as Richard wants to work, having Jared there to entice him into doing something else is immensely helpful.

Sometimes Jared teaches Richard how to cook something, sometimes they curl up together on the couch and watch a favourite film of Richard’s or one of Jared’s favourite documentaries.

Sometimes they retreat to the bedroom, or simply whatever flat surface of whatever room they happen to be in, and bestow kisses with varying degrees of gentleness upon one another, while wrenching orgasms with equally varying degrees of gentleness from one another.

Jared loves it when Richard pulls his hair.

Richard loves it when Jared wraps a hand around his throat.

.     .     .

It’s a Sunday morning, and though they woke up hours ago they still haven’t gotten out of bed. Jared has his head pillowed against Richard’s chest and is inspecting his fingers, holding them up against the sunlight filtering into the room.

“What are you looking for exactly?” Richard asks, smiling as Jared’s long fingers lace through his.

“Nothing. Just looking,” Jared replies, bringing Richard’s hand to his mouth and kissing every single one of his digits individually. “You have such beautiful fingers, Richard. So talented. Look at all you’ve created with them.”

Richard hums, content, and presses a kiss to the top of Jared’s head. “I love you, you know.”

He hasn’t said it yet. It’s been five months since Richard finally mustered up the courage to crush his lips against Jared’s, four months since they made it something resembling official, a month since Richard moved in.

It’s been over two years since Richard knew that Jared loved him, could tell by the way he, well, said or did anything. Five months since Jared told him after that first night, adding an addendum that he didn’t expect Richard to reciprocate right away, even though Richard did.

How could he not have?

Anyone who was the lucky recipient of Jared’s love would be a fool not to return it.

“Oh, Richard. I do know,” Jared replies assuredly, tilting his head up and looking at Richard. “I love you too.”

Richard laughs. "That's not exactly been a secret, you know."

"Well, how about how _utterly_ in love with you I am?" Jared asks, shifting so that he's straddling Richard's hips.

"Also no," Richard replies, though his voice sounds breathless to his own ears as his hands settle across Jared's thighs.

"Good," Jared murmurs as he leans down and mouths gently at Richard's lips, until Richard is responding, gasping quietly as Jared's tongue licks its way into his mouth.

They have nowhere to be that day but at home - _their home_ \- with one another.

There is nowhere else that Richard would rather be.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](http://antiquitea.tumblr.com) where i yell in my tags a lot about how angry attractive boys make me.


End file.
